Rainbow Naked Egg Experiment Part 2 – Osmosis and Diffusion

For Saint Partrick’s day we did a lot of fun activities including the Rainbow Naked Egg Experiment, you can read it here. Part One of the Naked Egg Experiment is dissolving the egg shells. That part of the experiment can be found here.

If you are just joining us we made a set of Rainbow Eggs, Spencer broke one and we popped one to see what color the whites were. We threw out the original control egg because we did not need it any more.

We set up four jars

Salt Solution – Put a lot of table salt in your jar. You need to see salt on the bottom. This means you have a supersaturated solution. You want a supersaturated solution so there is more water inside the egg then outside and the water will pass from the egg to the jar.

Corn Syrup – There is minimal water in corn syrup.

Seltzer – Seltzer is a huge hit in this house and pretty much everything involves seltzer.

Water – The control. Every good experiment needs at least one control.

Spencer wanted to put glitter in the jars. So I said what the heck, why not? Glitter makes everything more fun. I am wondering if the glitter will interfere with the experiment at all by clogging the pores of the membrane. I also am curious as to whether or not the glitter makes it into the egg. So this will be interesting.

Four Days Later…

Again we didn’t have to wait this long, but we wanted to include Daddy.

The Results

The Salt Solution jar – The water was orange. This means water diffused through the membrane to the jar. The egg is a little smaller and was a bit squishy. When popped the insides flowed out from the hole and I had to push the remainder of the contents out. The yolk was hard and had a white thing attached to it on one side. I am guessing this was the chalaza. There was a vinegar smell when the jar was opened.

The Corn Syrup jar – There is a little more volume and there was a layer of yellow water floating on top of the corn syrup. This is because the water is less dense than the corn syrup. Density is how tightly packed the molecules of the substance are. This is because water diffused through the membrane to the jar just like in the Salt Solution jar. There was also a vinegar smell from this jar. The egg is much smaller and deflated looking. When pricked the liquid oozed out and had to be squeezed out through the hole. The yolk was very hard. Again there was a mass on the end of the yolk, but it was larger and yellow. I think it was part of the whites and the chalaza.

The Seltzer jar – The egg had a bit of a gas bubble inside of the egg that none of the other eggs have. The water was cloudy and there was a vinegar odor. This egg swelled considerably. When pricked nothing came out of the egg. I removed the membrane to find that the whites had solidified into a squishy substance. I really am not sure why the egg white congealed like this. All the eggs and jars were rinsed before the second experiment was started. However, this is the egg that we had soaked twice in vinegar.

The Water jar – The egg is virtually the same size as it was at the beginning of the experiment. The was a little diffusion because the water was dyed a very light blue. I bounced the egg before we pricked it. When this egg was pricked I nicked the yolk. A large hole was formed and the yolk and whites flowed freely from the membrane.

All eggs were rinsed before pricking to see if any sparkles got into the eggs. No sparkles entered any of the eggs.

All in all this was an incredibly fun activity that had us all talking for days. I hope you decide to do this with your family. If you do please let me know by posting pictures on our Facebook page. If you enjoyed this post please share it!